Market à la mode
Subtitle: fashion, commodity, and gender in the Tatler and the Spectator
By: Erin Mackie.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Baltimore, Md
Language: eng
Number of pages: 303
Subjects: Tatler (London, England : 1709); Spectator (London, England : 1711); English essays -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Literature and society -- England -- History -- 18th century; English periodicals -- History -- 18th century; Fashion -- England -- History -- 18th century; Commercial products in literature; Aesthetics, British -- 18th century; Ethics, Modern -- 18th century; Middle class in literature; Sex role in literature; Fashion in literature; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century
Description: In Market a la Mode, Erin Mackie examines the role that two periodicals played in the growth of fashion and how they influenced their readers. She traces the commercial context in which The Tatler and The Spectator operated, focusing on the processes of commodification, fetishization, and revisions of gender identity.

By championing "natural" fashion against the hoop-petticoat, domesticated women against the sophisticated woman of the world, the polite and aestheticised imagination against the illusions of fancy and enthusiasm, and the decency of bourgeois against the depravity of aristocratic taste, The Tatler and The Spectator advanced modern standards of British culture.

Mackie's study makes clear that fashion publications, far from being commentaries on passing trends, assumed a leading role in defining women's legitimate sphere of activities as well as in the development of commerce as recreation.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-298) and index.